This season I seem to be experimenting only with cookies for Christmas. A frequent visitor to my Facebook page complained that I always have egg based recipes and she being a pure vegetarian can't make them. That drove me to hunt around for a cookie recipe which has no eggs and viola I found one.

The original recipe did not pan out very well in terms of taste and was also rather brittle, so I made some changes and here's what you get now.

Chocolate Chip Cookies are something that my little one is quite fond of. I've baked them before in a regular oven when I had one. The one time I had tried to bake them in the microwave did not go over too well and so I decided against doing it again.

However I saw a friend baking sugar cookies a couple of days ago and I got really tempted to try them out. Unfortunately the rolled sugar cookies needed a regular oven. I checked out an eggless sugar cookies recipe here. That too needed to baked in an oven.

Then I looked for microwave baked cookies in particular and found this recipe. That I promptly modified into a ChocoChip Cookie recipe. So here is what finally came out of the microwave this morning.

1. Beat the egg then add sugar, softened butter and vanilla powder.
2. Mix well with beater then add in the flour and make a dough.
3. Form balls, flatten slightly and place on butter paper on a microwave safe baking tray.
4. Add the chocochips to the cookies. Embed them halfway so that they stick.
5. Cook on high power for about 2 minutes. Some batches needed an extra thirty seconds, so work with your microwave's specifics.
6. Place on rack to cool. Be careful they tend to break off easily when hot.

About half an hour later when they have cooled they will also become crustier. That's when you can bite into them.

You can never go wrong with caramel and chocolate. This was a quick pudding I whipped up for friends who came to lunch.

For the Chocolate Sauce

Put one 100 g slice of butter, 1 cup of sugar, 6 spoons of cocoa, and 1/2 cup of milk on the heat and melt it all. You get a thick consistency, take it off the heat.

For the Caramel Sauce

Take 1 cup sugar and caramelize it till golden brown, don't let it burn into a darker shade. Take it off the heat. Now add 100 g butter and watch out for the splutter. Add 1/2 cup thick cream and stir well till sauce is fluid.

Final Assembly

Crush some biscuits and add to the bottom of the container. Add a layer of chocolate sauce, then another layer of biscuits, add a layer of caramel sauce, another later of biscuits and finally another layer of chocolate sauce.

If you did it right, this is what it should look like.

I topped it all off with a walnut and a glazed cherry. Came out absolutely sinful!

If you have ever visited the Bankebihari Temple in Mathura, you have eaten those brown pedas that they use as prasad. And if you make ghee at home from the cream that comes off the milk you know how to make the khoya needed to make these pedas.

Making the Khoya or Ghee Residue Milk Solids is simple. Collect a bowl full of cream and then put in in a heavy bottomed pan to cook. The white milk solids will separate from the ghee and as they begin to turn brown take the pan off the heat. Now simply sieve the ghee away and put the khoya (the ghee residue) away to cool off.

1. Place the khoya in the mixie jar and blend it.
2. Add the castor sugar and nutmeg powder and blend some more.
3. Place the coconut powder in a plate.
4. Take a spoonful of the khoya mixture and roll it in the coconut.
5. Make a circular peda shape and place it in a plate.
6. Repeat till you use up all the khoya mixture and place the plate in the fridge for the pedas to solidify.

It's ready to eat folks. One of the best uses of ghee residue ever possible.

Muffins are easy to bake and serve. You can add them to your kid's lunch box without it breaking up and getting crumby, something I have on authority is not good. I had a bunch of praline bits left over from a chocolate making session some time back and it was sticking together. So I decided to use it up in these muffins.

The result was yummy and gooey muffins which taste absolutely amazing when slightly warm. No prizes for guessing what I had for breakfast today!Ingredients

1. Whisk the cream, eggs and sugar together till blended. Takes about five to six minutes with the hand blender.
2. Now add the flour and cut and fold. Toss in the praline pieces.
3. Spoon out the batter into the cupcake shells till half filled.
4. Bake in the microwave on High Power for 2 and half minutes for a batch of six muffins.
5. Serve warm.

I love chocolate. Open secret. My house is full of chocoholics. So gooey, frosted brownies are very popular in my home. We've been buying them from different bakeries just to compare tastes. Then I got curious when a friend of mine posted a homemade brownie pic on Facebook. I asked her for the recipe and she sent over the All Recipes link. It needed an oven. I don't have a convection oven, just a regular fifteen year old microwave. I decided to alter it a bit and see how it would turn out.

1. Grease and flour an 8 inch square baking dish.
2. Melt the butter in a vessel and remove from heat.
3. Once it cools a bit stir in the sugar, vanilla powder and cocoa.
4. Beat in the eggs and add the baking powder and salt.
5. Beat till the sugar dissolves.
6. Add the flour and beat some more till smooth.
7. Pour into baking dish and bake on "High" for five minutes.
8. Leave to stand in microwave for ten minutes while you fix the frosting.
9. Frost the cake while still warm. Leave to cool and set.
10. Cut into the requisite square slices.

Colour will darken as it cools. It was absolutely yummy and so simple! It disappeared within 12 hours!

Biryani is one of the most popular meals at my home. Basmati rice cooked with spicy chicken is how I usually make it. However this time round I decided to go the traditional layer biryani way with different coloured rice as well. Of course I can never stick to a traditional recipe so I had a whole lot of other stuff going into it as well. Here's how it all came together.

I've always baked my meatloaf in a regular oven and was not too sure if I could manage to bake it in a non-convection mircowave oven. So I adapted the recipe around a bit and this is what I got. Needless to say it finished the very same day.

Ingredients

500g Chicken mince (kheema)

200g Cheese spread

4 slices of Bread, churned to crumbs in mixer

1 Onion, finely chopped

3 cloves of Garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon of Garam Masala

Salt to taste

Method

1. Cook the onions and garlic for 30 seconds on High in the microwave.

2. Mix all the ingredients together and place in a microwave safe baking dish.

3. Combination 2 of Grill and Microwave for 6 minutes. Check if center is done, if not put it back to cook for another minute.

1. Heat the oil to crackle the ajwain seeds, add the garlic and sauté.
2. Add the onion and cook till translucent.
3. Add the cup of fresh vegetables and cook for a couple of minutes. Take off heat.

4. Whisk all the wet ingredients together (egg, milk, oil, pizza sauce, cheese).
5. Add the vegetables and cheese. Stir well.
6. Sift the dry ingredients( atta, maida, dalia, BP and BS) and mix into this along with the oregano and pepper to the wet ingredients.

7. Add the vegetables and mix nicely.
8. Now pour into muffin cups and bake in the microwave on High for 5 minutes.

Fresh out of the Microwave

9. Slice open the baked muffin and add a dash of Pizza Sauce to make a muffin sandwich as a variation.

Add some Pizza Sauce for a Tasty Twist

This recipe was modified from the original recipe shared with me by Soni Sangwan.

This basically began as an experiment as I had some lovely caramel left over from my Christmas Cake and I decided to use it up. I also had decanted a fresh batch of homemade wine and used the grape raisins therein to add some more flavour to the cake. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup Flour

1 1/2 cup Castor Sugar

1/2 cup Cream

2 Eggs

1 spoon Baking Powder

1 spoon of vanilla essence (I used the industrial powder, but you can use the liquid drops)

4 tablespoons of Caramel (Just put three spoons of sugar in a heavy bottomed pan and burn it till its smoking. Then take it off the flame and add some water to liquidise it.)

4 tablespoons of Grape Raisins from wine making (I know you may not have these handy. You could just soak some raisins in wine or any alcohol of your choice like rum, whisky, etc)

Method

1. Add the sugar, eggs and cream to a bowl and beat with hand blender for about five minutes till light and creamy.

2. Now add the vanilla essence and baking powder. Beat some more.

3. Add the Caramel and the alcohol soaked raisins and stir it well.

4. Time for the flour to be folded in.

5. Line your baking dish with some butter or oil and pour in the cake batter.

6. I baked this in the microwave on High for 5 minutes. You may need to adjust as per your own oven.

The Marinara Sauce is traditionally ground to a paste before being used as a base for pasta. However I let the vegetables stay whole and somewhat chunky while cooking them to remove the crunchy taste. Using the sauce as a filling for the shortcrust pastry tarts that I have baked in the microwave!

1 Heat the oil and add garlic. Saute till golden then add the onions and cook till light brown.
2 Stir in the tomatoes and add tomato ketchup, salt and pepper. Cover and cook for 2 minutes till tomatoes soften.
3 Add the water and oregano. Bring to a boil then simmer till paste turns thick and somewhat dry.
4 Remove from the fire and add the cream. Stir well and keep aside to cool.

Note: If you wish to use the marinara sauce for a pasta base you will have to add this mixture to the grinder and churn it to a fine paste. I did not do that for my recipe.

Note: while not traditionally done, I added some black kalonji seeds to my dough.

Method
1 Bring butter to room temperature and rub it into the flour till the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
2 Add the water and salt to make the dough. If using kalonji add in this step.
3 Now rest the dough for half an hour wrapped in cling film in the refrigerator, before rolling it out and cutting it into circles.
4 Place the circles in the tart shells and bake in the microwave for about 8 minutes on high. ( You will have to adjust the heat and the timings based on your individual oven)
5 Once the tartlets are baked cool them on a wire rack.

Assemble the Tartlets
Place the sauce in the tartlets and here I have added a fried potato stick to it for garnish.

Tipsy is a hot favourite in my home and gets consumed almost as soon as it is made. This was the pudding of choice to bring in the new year this time. The one that traditionally has custard and jelly is not as popular so I leave that out. Here's the quickest dessert you can put together.